Well, Israel did not strike Iran’s nuclear site. Either Israel has decided on a highly unconventional method of destroying this menace later, or the Middle East will now have to deal with nuclear blackmail from one of the world’s most evil and aggressively unstable Muslim nations. With Pakistan, China, North Korea, and Russia assisting other terrorist nations, the threat is imminent. The world’s top terrorist experts tell us a nuclear attack on America is a certainty; we just don’t know when.

Have any meaningful preparations been made to assist survivors of such an attack? The answer is, of course, no. “Homeland Security” is a preposterous fraud. Just look at the increasingly bloody battles on our southern border.

This may sound too 1950s, but unfortunately, the need for “civil defense” emergency food, water, and medicine, is much greater today than 60 years ago. The attack will be launched by Muslim jihadists (demanded by both Quran and Hadith) and welcomed by communists and other criminal elements. Think of the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Los Angeles. Food, water, and medical facilities are gone. Imagine what LA’s famously clogged freeways will look like, flooded with vehicles and hysterical drivers seeking to escape the fiery chaos. Maybe it would be a good idea to locate multiple centers of life-saving supplies near those areas most people would be heading towards after such an attack.

Washington might act on this problem if post-disaster preparation were deemed an idea Too Big to Fail.

As I write these words only two days remain in Israel’s window of opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear terror complex. That is, absent the military destruction of the reactor, Russia (the contractor) will further empower another evil atomic aggressor by the placement of the fuel rods, just as China helped North Korea.

That act would be consistent with Russia’s roll in the world since 1917. There is a profound evil consistency among the anti-Judeo-Christian and anti-democratic nations of the world. They seem to bear a curse almost unique to atheist societies, that of constantly stirring up hatred, wars and rumors of war. This is done in their constant pursuit of domination of the world, or, as China sees it, universal, atheistic hegemony. Central to all of these evil orders is a hatred of freedom – freedom to worship, freedom of private property, speech, association, etc. America is the only power on earth today with the ability to defend against this universal evil. Israel is the only country in the Middle East which shares America’s ethics and ethos of freedom and self-determination.

Under Obama, America has abandoned its only friend in the Middle East, Israel. It may have been determined that, without America’s traditional help, Israel could not effectively destroy the new nuclear site. The price we will pay for not assuring that the Iranian nuclear complex is destroyed will be huge for the free nations of the world.

***

The plans for the ground zero mosque are everywhere in the news. This plan is Islam’s way of celebrating its “victory” in its sneak attack on the twin towers, which killed thousands of innocent, unsuspecting people – including many Muslims.

It is being heralded as the “Victory Mosque” and as something related to the Caliphate of Cordoba, before 1492, where Christians lived in dhimmitude under Islam. Others (the politically correct) claim it is an attempt to bring closure to the murderous outrage of 9/11.

I would approve of the new 13-story mosque at ground zero when: a church is built in Saudi Arabia, along with a 13-story monument to the battle of Lapanto (1571). Otherwise, this mosque must be seen as deliberately designed to attract Jihadists from around the world who now make pilgrimages to the sites of Islam’s bloodiest atrocities.

This mosque plan is a deliberate outrage.

Well, it appears that four candidates for Fillmore City Council have tossed their hats in the ring. Correction – that’s three hats and one beanie. This is a critical election for the city, and a de facto referendum on voter confidence. If you like what the Katzenjammers have brought to city government during the past two years you now have an opportunity to vote-in two of their buddies.

***

Several months ago I characterized the U.S. as bankrupt. That comment was quickly criticized as incorrect. I strongly urge everyone to read a poignant article from Bloomberg which has been posted to the "Publisher's Blog" located here. In very simple, clear language you will learn what has happened to the American economy because of the spendthrift Obama policies. Read it and weep. It’s entitled: U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know; By Laurence Kotlikoff - Aug 10, 2010

Bloomberg Opinion. We haven’t even begun to experience the economic devastation we have brought upon ourselves by over taxing and over spending (during the past 60 years). But, while we have lived with reckless financial abandon for a long time, Obama’s fiscal policies have super-sized the problem. It’s obvious now that our government (federal, state, and local) is so profoundly corrupt that only major political surgery can save the patient. Our best hope is to unsheathe a sharp scalpel in November.

***

Welcome back Captain Hagel and the whole Sheriff’s team. They have just returned from Siberia where they ran another Marathon. We await details and photos for next week’s Gazette.

As some of our readers may have learned, the Gazette website has been harassed by an emotionally unstable young man who is distressed by a few of my editorials.

I am always amazed at the reaction some topics will provoke, especially since the Gazette is such a small newspaper, compared to the media monoliths of today. The only political spot in the Gazette is the editorial, which numerous letters often counterbalance. Why don’t local liberals just skip my 300 words and go directly to the news? That’s what progressives and liberals always tell conservatives to do when it comes to topics like pornography and squandering tax money.

One question arising from this unstable blogger’s attacks is whether to release the threatening telephone harangue he left at the Gazette’s office. This blogger personifies the new breed of cyber-weenies that internet anonymity has spawned. They are by far the biggest headache for those trying to maintain a credible website.
In extreme cases it is now far easier to identify and prosecute/sue a blogger who has threatened or defamed an innocent party on the internet.

I am still trying to decide whether or not to release the telephone message in question. What bothers me most in this case is the extreme blasphemy he expresses, the same he posted to the site. Do I release such a thing in order to show who this person is, or do I not? I would like your opinion. Post your opinion on the blog at www.fillmoregazette.com.

In any event, “robertolepe”, get some help.

* * *

News in Fillmore is slow when school is out. We’re anxious for classes to open on the 18th. Also, football will be back again!

* * *

To date, 7 residents have pulled papers to run for city council. They are: Laurie Hernandez; Marcoz Hernandez; Antonio Hernandez; Patti Walker; Brian Sipes; Bernardo Lugo, and Adrian Grimaldo. The deadline date for pulling and filing papers is Friday, August 6th.

I just heard that a federal judge has blocked much of Arizona’s illegal immigrant law. This is another outrageous attack by the federal government upon the states. Washington has no idea how angry and frustrated the loyal, law-abiding American citizen has become with government corruption, incompetence, and the new wave of socialist activity. The President, Senate, and House have abandoned their sworn duty to defend this nation against all enemies foreign and domestic - maybe because they recognize a truth in Pogo’s observation, “We have met the enemy and he is us”. The judiciary has become equally rotten. Our leadership refuses to serve and to uphold our Constitution. For the first time in my life I believe political corruption has reached a destabilizing level. The people have a duty to rid themselves of the political parasites and judicial whores who are bringing down our nation. I think this latest outrage by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton has lit the fuse for a second shot heard round the world. I only regret having to wait for November.

If you are a loyal, law-abiding American, VACATION IN ARIZONA, those folks need your help!

Four traffic accidents have occurred during the past 30 days within a quarter-mile stretch of Highway 23, a short distance south of Bardsdale Avenue. This is extraordinary.

Most recently, this past Thursday, a man alleged to be driving under the influence of alcohol, smashed into the rear of a truck which was making a left turn from the highway.

Later, this office received a phone call from a man who had been following this allegedly drunk driver from ‘C’ Street, all the way east, down River Street to the 23, from where he turned and headed south. The caller observed this driver narrowly escape several head-on collisions on River and the 23, after running over the turn-about on River Street. He also observed the allegedly drunk driver run into the truck at a high rate of speed (estimated to be 50-plus miles per hour).

Thank God he wasn’t able to negotiate Grimes Canyon; it would have been certain death attempting those hairpin turns and 300-foot cliff. He would have, in all probability, caused another vehicle to crash over the cliff. I’m angry just thinking about this incident.

Anyone arrested as a drunk driver belongs in jail, for a long time. Better that than having to attend a funeral for a family the drunk could have killed.

Drive carefully. Do not drive when you have been drinking.

* * *

The city suffered a murder this week. A gang member was shot point-blank during a backyard party.

I clearly recall the prevailing attitude towards street gangs in Fillmore when I arrived some 21 years ago. There was an indignant reluctance to admit we had a gang. Some long-time residents would respond to a question about gangs with “Fillmore doesn’t have gangs!” This, despite repeated warnings from our Sheriff’s department that we did indeed have the beginnings of a gang.

Any police officer will tell you that a good 95 percent of all crime in our town is directly related to gang activity. Like a plague of locusts gang members infest the towns in which they reside. They prey on the weak; they live by stealing what honest residents have worked hard to obtain. They live in the dark where they vandalize our community and threaten physical harm to innocent citizens. They drag the very young into the miserable life and early death they have chosen. For influencing the young as they do, the Bible tells us they call down upon themselves a terrible curse: “And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.” Matthew 18:6, Luke 17:2, Mark 9:42.

Gang members should think beyond the times in which they are living.

There is a God, and there is a Heaven and a Hell. There is no parole from Hell, and certainly not a Get Out of Hell Free card. Hell is forever, and forever, and forever; that’s called eternity.

Dead at 80 is Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Rush Limbaugh had it right when he observed that George knew when to die.

He bought the Yankees in the 1970s for about $10 million. Today, the club is worth $1.1 billion. Had he died after December 31, 2010 the government would have grabbed a half-billion in estate taxes, to be given to some cash-hungry bank or other “too big to fail” private institution. But he slid from time into eternity in 2010, thus his family gets to keep the money he worked for all his life. This is because the Obama tax increase doesn’t start until January 1, 2011.

I see an imperious Barack Hussein Obama fiddling as millions of small businesses spontaneously combust under the pressure of his huge new tax increases. The year 2011 will inaugurate a tax Armageddon for small business.

***

There is so much negative news these days that it’s a real treat to find a pocket of very good news. The Sheriff’s Department and the Boy Scouts sponsor our Santa Clara Valley Post of Explorers. These bright young men and women are about to attend the Sheriff’s Academy in Camarillo. I wish them well and know that all will graduate with flying colors.

***

Yipes! It’s Sipes. David Lugo and Brian Sipes have “pulled” papers, indicating they have an interest in running for the Fillmore City Council. The papers include instructions to follow in order to comply with the law in the event they wish to file to run for office.

I can’t remember when we’ve had so many traffic accidents in such a short period of time. During the past week I photographed four collisions (three on the same day) including a serious motorcycle accident on Highway 126 and a fatal pickup truck incident on lower Grimes Canyon. I’m told that another happened on Balcom Canyon.
Independence Day is upon us, one of the busiest holidays of the year. I hope you all drive carefully on this Fourth. Remember to look out for the other guy.

***

As I scribble these words a confident Ms. Elena Kagan is being hosted by the US Senate in an ostensible effort to determine her fitness to join the most exclusive club in the world, the United States Supreme Court. The atmosphere is genial. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an aide serving coffee and donuts (or, maybe tea and petite Madeleine) to distinguished committee members for the occasion.

What a difference 27 years can make. When Ronald Reagan nominated Judge Robert Bork back in 1987 Senate tactics for approving a Republican Supreme Court nominee were quite different. For committee Democrats the demeanor was pretty much cut and slash – cut and slash the impeccable reputation of one of America’s preeminent jurists and legal scholars. Instead of asking this nominee relevant questions to determine philosophy, and scrutinize judicial temperament (expecting honest answers) the committee acquiesces as Kagan laughs, jokes, and disguises her true understanding of the Constitution, and post approval intentions. She is pure poison for strict constructionists, and for freedom in America.

This is the most powerful governmental body in our nation. It can have the last say in the most important decisions Congress can make, and in our most intimate desires and activities, in the amount of freedom we have to live our lives.

Kagan is schmoozing through a cakewalk. She will be the second radical “progressive” to have been nominated by Obama. She is anti-Second Amendment. She is weak on free speech. She is strongly pro-abortion. She is anti-military. She will also be pro-gay marriage. In short, she is another disaster in the making, in the transformation of our national culture.

This is the sort of consequence that follows when 54 percent of the American electorate vote-in a community organizer like Obama because of his race.

Brace yourselves for the sudden stop; we’re already in free-fall.

REALITIES
A perfect storm has arrived for America. The intellectual, military, economic, moral, Constitutional, and cultural center of American exceptionalism is about to smash itself on the rocks of historic reality. Muslim jihadists, foreign and domestic, accelerate their bloody plans to force the non-Muslim world into the yoke of dhimmitude (Islamic slavery under Sharia law).

The US pursues two Middle East wars while trying to control psychotic North Korea, all of the Middle East (except Israel), most of Africa, most of South and Central America and the narco state of Mexico. Fueling, reinforcing and encouraging our enemies are our mega-enemies, communist China and the KGB robber baron dictators of Russia and its minions.

America’s military might has been whittled away to pay for trillions of dollars in “entitlements” and other unfunded social mandates. America is technically broke, bankrupt. Most of our “leaders” (including House and Senate) have neither the talent, imagination, nor experience to lead. Secretary of Defense Gates cuts the Raptor fighter plane program because, he says, this plane is no longer needed and is too expensive. Immediately thereafter both China and Russia launch the production of their fifth generation super fighters claiming they are superior to our F-22. But Gates has the time to push for an openly homosexual military! That should be a real morale booster.

NATO, our supposed partners in defense against the rapacious east, is a pathetic conglomeration of mostly European nations reluctant to fight and having little means with which to do so when called upon. Turkey has turned against America and is reverting to its Ottoman Caliphate mentality.

The worst man-made catastrophe in recent world history is spouting oil into the gulf like an undersea volcano, with no end in sight, and the president has been dithering for two months.

As I write these words the president has just removed General McChrystal in Afghanistan. McChrystal made an inexplicable error in criticizing his Commander in Chief. Experts see the General’s participation in the coming surge as critical to success. Obama should have put together some face-saving way of keeping McChrystal in charge but he didn’t have the humility to do so. We could be losing it in Afghanistan.

America has been the most blessed nation on earth; we have had everything, including the world’s most industrious citizens. 54 percent of the electorate voted for Obama. This will prove to be the greatest mistake in American history, he is utterly unqualified. He carries on the failures of past administrations, like our de facto open borders and uncontrolled criminal immigration. He is clueless in all military matters. He has no experience in administration, economics, or business. Obama is a community organizer, a slick-talking, clueless, socialist activist who has gathered a like-minded pool of incompetents to assist him in the deconstruction of our nation.

The only extraordinary talent the Obama administration has is the ability to spend our money, which it does with wild abandon. Not since the Civil War has the security of this nation been so threatened. And, instead of an Abraham Lincoln, we have a boot-licking community organizer who never met a foreign head of state he didn’t want to bow to.

Where did all the Americans go?

It’s been a busy week. It always is during graduation time.
I have to say that, both Fillmore High School and Sierra High School graduation ceremonies were orchestrated and performed flawlessly. Student decorum was excellent. No time was lost nor aggravation created, as sometimes in the past, by unscheduled stunts or misbehavior. The ceremonies were completed in a joyful atmosphere, with the dignity and decorum appropriate for the occasion. For this our graduates are due double congratulations, as are school district teachers and staff.

* * *

Our Fillmore Historical Museum received a large, heavy present today (June 16) from Bud Lowe. From Mr. Lowe’s property in Hopper Canyon a caboose has been delivered and installed on the tracks adjacent to the Museum.
I am always amazed at the ability crane companies have for moving just about anything. My hat is off to T & T Crane Company for their professional skill. Now, after the caboose is cleaned-up and possibly restored, we have another reason for visiting our own town museum.

* * *

I was going to comment on President Obama’s first Oval Office address to the nation, but as I listened to part of it I slipped into a state of catatonic depression from which I probably won’t recover until the next edition. This column is being transcribed by Pebbles the office dog.